Tensions got hotter when the regional powers joined in. Turkish warplanes swooped down from the north to target their own Kurdish separatists, who have based themselves in northern Iraq. Iranian troops reportedly lurked in the areas still controlled by their Kurdish allies. But no presence was felt more strongly than Iraq’s. Although Saddam Hussein withdrew his troops from Erbil, he replaced them with secret police instructed to root out his opponents. Even so, Iraqi heavy armor lay only 15 kilometers to the south, where troops in crisp khaki uniforms and red berets manned a checkpoint alongside Kurdish peshmerga in their traditional baggy pants and sashes.
The Kurds share the political goal of autonomy. But their squabbling goes back for decades, and centers on their rival leaders. The faction now supported by Iraq, the Kurdish Democratic Party, is loyal to the soft-spoken Massoud Barzani. Meanwhile, the more outgoing Jalal Talabani leads the Iranian-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which is furious at Barzani for embracing their mutual enemy, Iraq. “When any Kurd makes a deal with Saddam Hussein, his crime is bigger than any done by Saddam [to the Kurds],” says Kosrat Rassul, Iraqi Kurdistan’s prime minister and a PUK party official. Rassul fled Erbil ahead of the Iraqi tanks last week and has been directing his forces east of the city. “The Iraqi Army wants to capture all of Kurdistan,” he said at a somber meeting of his deputies last Friday. A lack of U.S. support, he said, has left his party few options but to turn to Iran.
Barzani’s troops blame America, too. They insist that Washington’s failure to curb alleged Iranian attacks against them last month forced them into Saddam’s arms. “We cannot prevent [the regional powers] from coming in,” Barzani told NEWSWEEK. “It is the Americans who have pledged that they will protect the region.”
Meanwhile, the Kurdish people continue to suffer. Erbil residents have been without power or water for more than a week. A parade of women and children haul cans and pots around collecting water from a handful of wells. Aid workers say a million people are at risk for disease if the water is not turned on soon. In the hills around the city, the situation is even bleaker; throngs of people trek the barren landscape in search of a freshwater spring.
Many Kurds have had enough. “I’m fed up with this situation,” says Salah al-Odeise, a hotel owner in downtown Erbil. “This party comes and this one goes. We don’t like any party here.” Some residents are even beginning to suggest what was once unthinkable: the return of a single leader to control the region. “We just want one power here to get rid of this situation of continuous war,” says al-Odeise. “Anybody would do.” Even Saddam.
